


Timebomb

by Rubywolf



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25189978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubywolf/pseuds/Rubywolf
Summary: River Song borrows the TARDIS for a rescue mission. She didn't count on an unexpected passenger.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 16
Kudos: 145





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a multi chapter work, but ao3 is being crazy... more to come soon!

The Tardis was still and quiet as the Doctor waited on the kettle to heat up, leaning back against the kitchen counters and planning out her afternoon. It was the perfect time for a cup of tea, a book, and maybe a nap, and the plush chairs in the library were calling to her. Graham, Ryan and Yaz had just left, off to go enjoy their regular lives for a bit, and she was planning to leave the Tardis right where it was while both her and the machine recharged for a bit.

The kettle screeched and she poured her tea, stirring in several heaping spoonfuls of sugar and gently blowing on the surface to cool it before taking a tentative sip. Her tea was perfect, the quiet was perfect, and she was fairly certain nothing could spoil her afternoon.

Without warning, the Tardis lurched into space, sloshing her tea all over her hand and prompting a surprised exclamation from the Doctor. Grabbing onto the countertop for support, she unceremoniously slammed the mug down, spilling the rest of the tea in the process, grabbing a tea towel to wipe the hot, sticky liquid off her hands and stumbling to the control room to figure out just what the heck her ship thought it was doing without her.

She had barely reached the console room when the ship lurched in a different direction and the Doctor sprawled forward, catching her fall rather painfully on her hands. “Hey!” she exclaimed aloud, glancing up just in time to see a pair of boots on the other side of the console. “What are you doing?!” she yelled at the figure attached to them, staggering ungracefully to her feet.

“Oh no.” A terribly familiar voice came from the other side of the pillar… but it couldn’t be. The Doctor felt her hearts stop and the blood drain from her face as River Song stepped around the console and into view, pulling a lever to stop the TARDIS’s flight. “Where did you come from?” River asked. 

It took the Doctor a minute to get past the shock of seeing her wife for the first time in so very long, and she shook her head as she tried to think of actual words to say. “Uh. Came from the kitchen, I guess… I spilled my tea.” She wiped her hands on the tea towel and stuffed it in her coat pocket, glancing up at River, hungrily taking in the sight of her. It had been so many years, so very long since Darillium, and the Doctor hadn’t expected to see River again after that. He’d said his goodbyes, gotten as much closure as could be expected… so now to see her standing here in the Tardis, very much alive…

“The Doctor isn’t here, is he?” River asked urgently. “Oh, he better not be. That would be just my luck.” River stomped to the entrance of the hallway the Doctor had just come from, searching for a face she knew. 

“Why?” the Doctor asked suspiciously.

River turned back to her, taking her firmly by the shoulders and staring fiercely into her eyes. Funny, she was a bit taller than the Doctor these days, and with those boots… “I need you to tell me if he’s here or not, right now.”

“What are you hiding?” the Doctor raised one eyebrow at her wife.

“I’m not hiding anything. I just don’t want to see him,” River said simply.

The Doctor’s stomach dropped. Didn’t want to see her? And yet here she was, and River didn’t even recognize her- well, why should she really, with this new face- it was like a knife to the gut. “Why not?” she found herself asking, trying to keep the note of hurt out of her voice.

River pursed her lips impatiently. “Okay, more accurately, I don’t want him to see me. And if he’s here, we’ll turn right around and go back to Sheffield, and you’ll pretend like you never saw me.” She gave the Doctor a sharp look, but the Doctor knew her only too well. There was a catch in her voice, a tiny wobble to her chin, and a sincerity in her eyes that told the Doctor something was wrong. Something she didn’t want to talk about, especially not to her husband.

There was only one way to find out what it was, and this new face was as good a disguise as any. “Er. No. He’s not here. He… uh… stepped out,” the Doctor’s mind raced trying to spin a believable lie. “To go get croissants. Won’t be back for a while.” 

River gave her an odd look. “Croissants? In Sheffield, of all places? When he could just go to France and…” she shook her head. “Oh, never mind. If I ever figure out what’s going on in that head of his, the universe just might end.” She stepped back over to the console and flipped a few switches, quiet, and the ship easily swayed back into motion. “I should have figured he was travelling with someone these days. You’re just his type, too,” River glared down at the new console, looking for something, and punching a button when she found it.

The Doctor frowned. “Am I?”

River looked up at her, expression softening. “Sorry, I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m River Song. An old friend of the Doctor’s.”

Interesting way to put it, the Doctor thought, but she forced a smile anyway. “Nice to meet you.”

River looked at her expectantly, and the Doctor realized she was waiting for her to introduce herself. “Oh! I’m… uh…” John Smith, no, she couldn’t say that… Jane Smith? River would see right through that… “Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor blurted out the first female name that she was relatively certain River wouldn’t know. “My friends call me Yaz, though, you can call me Yaz.”

River gave her a smile, looking almost like her old self. “Nice to meet you, Yaz. And I really am sorry about the kidnapping.”

The Doctor grinned back. “It’s alright. I’m always up for an adventure. Love a good adventure.” She came to stand next to River at the console, stuffing her hands in her pockets to remind herself not to touch anything and give away that she knew how to fly the ship. “So where are we going?”

“Got a bit of a rescue mission, actually,” River said. “Isn’t there a screen? She’s usually got a- oh, here.” She pushed a button and a projection appeared between the crystal columns on a large wall. It took a moment for River to locate the appropriate controls, but when she did, the projection burst into color, text in both English and Gallifreyan. “A few colleagues were out trying to get an artefact, and they ran into some trouble. So they called me.”

“Why’d you need a Tardis for that?” the Doctor asked, watching her work and trying to keep an innocently curious tone to her voice.

River squatted down by the console, locating some cables and wires before pulling the vortex manipulator off her wrist and patching them in. “Well, my vortex manipulator couldn’t seem to find the coordinates, for starters. Besides, they said their VMs stopped working once they got within the planet’s gravity, and I didn’t want to risk all of us getting stranded there.” The screen popped to life with new information as the Tardis communicated with the little device.

“Vortex manipulators don’t sound very reliable,” the Doctor tried to keep the look of distaste off her face. 

River laughed. “Yeah, the Doctor hates them, too. They’re actually not that bad, no matter what he might say.”

“Not that bad to the point where you needed a real time machine to do what you needed?” the Doctor couldn’t help teasing.

“Oh, shut up, Yaz,” River laughed again, no real venom behind her words. “Yes, I needed a real time machine for this. You and the Doctor can gloat later.” She flipped a few switches and twisted a knob and stepped back for a moment to let the ancient machine change course. “Four of my colleagues are stuck here. Captured, actually. I don’t have a lot of detail, they only sent me a short message, but it seems like the local species thought they meant harm to them, so they’re currently locked up.” River frowned.

The Doctor nodded slowly, turning the information over in her mind. “Are you sure it was your colleagues who sent the message?” she asked slowly.

River paused. “I don’t have any reason to believe it would be anyone else,” she mused aloud. “What are you thinking?”

The Doctor shrugged, staring up at the screen that River had brought to life. “It’s just odd that you’ve been called to a planet, by yourself, that you can’t get off with the equipment they expect you to have. In my experience, you’re not usually allowed communication devices in prison.”

“Have a lot of experience with that, do you?” River cocked an eyebrow.

“Just the once. Or twice. Or so,” the Doctor mumbled under her breath. “My point stands, though.”

River was quiet for a moment, considering. “I’m still not going to let my friends rot and die on this planet, you know. That’s why I borrowed the Tardis, so I have a better shot at getting them out.”

The Doctor looked away, pretending to be fascinated by the projected screen. “You know, the Doctor would probably just help you if you asked, instead of you having to steal the Tardis for yourself.”

River smiled. “I’m sure he would.”

“So, why don’t you?”

River’s smile melted away, and she sighed almost imperceptibly. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“Well, go on, I’m smarter than I look.”

River gave her a look, tired and sorrowful and unwavering. “Yaz, it doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

“But-“

“I can just take you back to Sheffield and you can wait with the Doctor for me to bring the Tardis back, if you’d rather.”

The Doctor crossed her arms stubbornly, but dropped the subject.

River turned away, effectively ending the conversation, and attached a thigh holster to her leg. She checked to make sure her gun was in working order, failing to notice the Doctor struggling to keep the look of distaste at the gun off her face, and pulled a map and some small objects out of a little bag that the Doctor recognized- once upon a time, he’d made it bigger on the inside for her- then transferred the objects to an outer pocket for easy retrieval. She slung the bag over her head so it crossed her body and pulled up on the lever to land the Tardis.

The Doctor subtly glanced at the screen out of the corner of her eye, hoping River was preoccupied enough not to notice. The Tardis had a bad habit of displaying coordinates only in Gallifreyan, which River would see through instantly if she saw her reading it. Unfortunately, the text was far too small for the Doctor to read from as far away as she was. 

“You don’t have to come,” River told her, nodding towards the door. “I expect it’ll be pretty dangerous out there. You could go finish your tea,” she suggested.

“Nonsense.” The Doctor grinned and bounded to the doors, hopping out into the dry, oppressive heat and holding the door behind her, waiting for River to follow. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world.” 

River couldn’t help but smile, shaking her head a bit. “Well, I can see why he likes traveling with you.”

The Doctor looked back over her shoulder at her wife with a grin. “Come on, then!”

With one last check of the ship, River followed her out the doors into the hot wind and pulled the door shut behind her. 

Red dust swirled around their feet, the two suns in the sky cast ominous shadows on a tall, crumbling building made of the same dusty red rocks the landscape sported. The Doctor pulled her hood over her head in a feeble attempt to shield herself from the flying dust and blinding light. Turning her back to the wind, she shielded her eyes with her hand and looked upward, noticing several golden satellites hovering across the sky in the near atmosphere. They seemed to crackle with electricity, sparkling and emitting a low buzz that hung in the air.

They seemed vaguely familiar, vaguely _upsetting_ , but the Doctor couldn’t quite put her finger on why. 

She turned back to the building. It looked as if it had been there for millenia, and yet also looked like it could come crumbling down at any moment. “Is that where your friends are?” she called to River above the howling wind.

River was waiting on a device from her bag to pick up a signal, and nodded after a moment. “Are you sure you want to come?” she asked again.

Ignoring the pit in her stomach, the Doctor nodded. “Lead the way,” she told her wife.

****

Thousands of feet underground, in a nearly pitch black room, a surveillance monitor popped to life with the image of a hooded figure and a woman trudging across the barren ground. The beast sprawled in front of it sat up and pulled the monitor closer with a giant paw, narrowing its eyes at the image. Its snakelike head tilted to one side in an attempt to make sense of what it was seeing, and after a moment it bared its fangs in a crude smile. “Unbelievable,” it muttered to itself, hardly daring to believe.

“What?” A second beast lifted its head, squinting in the light of the monitor.

“You were right. They’re here.” The first beast turned from the monitor, rising up onto all four paws, wiry hair on its lionlike body catching the light from the monitor behind it and making it look nearly electrified. Its tail twitched excitedly. “Call for Grimmith. Ready the pod. Our time has come.”


	2. Chapter 2

_This is a bad place. We shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe._

The Doctor’s hearts thumped wildly in her chest, her sense of foreboding only growing as she followed River through the heavy wooden doors and into the ancient, dusty building. She couldn’t tell if her unease came from the satellites outside ( _what was it about them that made her so anxious?_ ) or from the hot, thick, stale air inside the building, or if she was picking up on something telepathically, and her inability to pinpoint what was wrong only made her more apprehensive. She let her hood drop off her head and chanced a glance to River, to see if she had any of the same reservations, but River’s face was open with a mildly cautious curiosity. 

Alright, the Doctor thought, just me then.

River sneezed as a puff of hot wind blew dust in from underneath the doors they’d closed behind them, and the Doctor nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden noise. River chuckled good-naturedly. “Alright there, Yaz?” 

The Doctor nodded and forced a small smile. “Yeah.” She glanced around, taking in the empty, dingy foyer, the only light that managed to squeeze in came from around the cracks in the door and one tiny window that was more like a slit near the ceiling. Further in, a large staircase led down into pitch black nothingness. “Something about this place really creeps me out,” she admitted after a moment, turning to find River studying her thoughtfully.

“Afraid of the dark?”

“No,” the Doctor retorted a little too quickly.

Looking down in an attempt to hide a smile, River fished around in her bag, finally locating a torch and tossing it to the Doctor. “Here. I think we’ve just got the one. Why don’t you hang on to it for us?”

It was a kind sort of thing to do, the Doctor recognized, meaning to thank her but the words seemed trapped in her throat as she caught the torch and switched it on. Hesitantly, she shone the beam into the empty corners. Several sets of human footprints marked trails in the dust on the floor, leading towards the staircase, all of them only leading in. 

_Her colleagues had asked her to come, and gotten captured._

_Something was wrong with this planet._

River tweaked a setting on her device as the Doctor took a few tentative steps towards the staircase, shining the light in front of her, seeing nothing but dusty stone floors at the bottom with four sets of footprints leading into the sort of thick, encompassing blackness you only get in absolute darkness.

_They were expecting River to come alone._

_They were expecting her to come with the same transportation that had stranded her colleagues._

_Something didn’t add up._

“So,” River said conversationally, following the blinking lights on her device as she started down the stairs. “How long have you been travelling with the Doctor?”

The Doctor’s desire to protect River from whatever might have called her here outweighed the fear creeping up her throat, and she forcibly set aside her nervousness and followed a step or two behind River as they descended into the blackness. “Um. A year or two?” she guessed, thinking how long she’d been traveling with the Fam. “Kind of hard to tell, really, when you’re time travelling,” she added, picturing it as something the real Yaz would say if she were asked.

“That long?” River asked with a smile. “What’s he like these days?”

Was that a test? The Doctor searched River’s face, looking for any sign that River was on to her deception and about to call her out. “What do you mean?”

“You know he can change his face, right?” River asked. “Regeneration? He’s not always the same when I see him.”

“Oh! Right, yeah, I- um, yeah, he mentioned,” the Doctor stammered, unsure which version of herself River would be expecting at this point in the timeline. “Well, er, he’s taller than me,” she said vaguely, avoiding details that would make River realize she was fibbing. “Still not ginger.”

River laughed. “If he ever finds out about hair dye, he might be able to fix that.”

The Doctor barked out a laugh, too, a sudden release of nervousness, as she imagined the Fam’s reaction if she pulled up in the Tardis one day with hair the same bright red as Amy’s had been. She could almost hear Graham’s polite ‘hmm very nice’ as his eyebrows approached his hairline. “Might have to suggest it then,” she joked to River. 

“But only when I’m around to see it,” River agreed with a grin. “What sort of places have you been to?” she asked after a moment of silence between them.

“Hmm.” Visions of prison and Gallifrey in ruins flashed through her mind, but none of those things would be appropriate to tell her wife when she couldn’t exactly pin her to the timeline. “We met Nicola Tesla,” she said instead. “And Rosa Parks. And King James. Ooh!” she turned to River excitedly. “I got ducked as a witch!”

“Oh,” River feigned an amused expression to hide the concern lurking just underneath. “Was that… a good thing?”

The Doctor returned a little smile, shrugging off River’s concern. “I guess not, but I didn’t die. Obviously. Turned out people were being possessed by sentient alien mud, not Satan.”

River came to a stop in front of a large wooden door covered in dust. “Never a dull moment, is there?” she asked as she turned the handle and leaned her weight into it, shoving it open and stepping inside the pitch black hallway beyond.

The torch illuminated the dusty hall they walked down, empty, devoid of any decorations or furniture. The walls seemed to be made of a crumbly kind of sandstone, the floors perhaps rock or dirt… or maybe it was just coated with dust so thick it only looked like dirt. It gave the Doctor the feeling of descending into a cave, or perhaps an abandoned mine, she thought as she noticed a few wooden doors with handle-style latches spaced sporadically down the walls.

The Doctor shone the beam of light into the corners as she followed, the door thudding shut with a dull finality behind them. Perhaps the conversation had successfully distracted her, or maybe she was just feeling better about being further away from the creepy satellites outside, but either way her mood was lifting, curiosity about River’s mission was getting the better of her. She needed to know where River was in her timeline to have a hope of guessing why she was on this particular mission. “So, er, when are you from?” 

“Pardon?” River asked with a bemused chuckle.

“Well, I figure you’re a time traveler, right? But when and where is your home?”

River smiled, closed and polite. “Hmm. I suppose you could say I’m a bit of a nomad,” she answered vaguely.

The Doctor waited a beat to see if she was going to elaborate. “Rubbish answer,” she teased when it became apparent River was done talking.

“Oh, so you’re a cheeky one!” River laughed, a genuine laugh this time. “Alright, fine. I’ve spent a lot of time in the 52nd century, although I wouldn’t exactly call that home. And a bit of time in the 1920s and 1930s, too, on Earth.” She gave the Doctor a little grin. “Does that answer your question?”

“Mostly,” the Doctor answered lightly, although she hadn’t really answered anything the Doctor didn’t already suspect: River was sometime between Stormcage and the Library. That didn’t really narrow it down at all. “When was the last time you saw the Doctor?”

“Oh, it’s been years for me,” River said, her tone light but her brow furrowed. “No telling how long it’s been for him. The Tardis has redecorated, so it’s either much longer since he’s seen me than I thought or much earlier than I thought.” She allowed herself a moment to frown down at her device, before replacing it with a soft smile and looking back up at the Doctor. “We never do meet in the right order.”

The Doctor pursed her lips. Perhaps this was why River was so good at getting out of sticky situations, the woman was incapable of giving a straight answer. “So you don’t travel with him, then? Has he ever asked you to?” she asked.

“Once,” River told her. “After my parents died.”

_Finally! After Manhattan._ “Didn’t you want to?” she replied.

River walked in silence for a moment before answering. “It’s not that I didn’t want to, really. It’s more that I didn’t honestly think I could stand to, right then.”

The Doctor paused, trying to make sense of that statement. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” River started, using the excuse of peering into the blackness of the room around them to avoid looking directly at her. “He’s not the best at dealing with loss. He doesn’t like endings. So it’s easier to handle grief alone.”

The Doctor frowned, confused. Surrounding herself with people and distractions was the one saving grace of the life she lead, and she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to wallow in their thoughts alone. “Really?” she asked incredulously.

“Don’t get me wrong, Yaz,” River told her quietly. “I love the Doctor with all my heart, but he has no idea how to deal with emotions. His or anyone else’s. If you let him see the damage...” she shrugged, but it wasn’t a casual shrug. “He runs away from anything that upsets him.”

“I don’t…” the Doctor started, her mind reeling. “I don’t understand,” she finished after a moment.

“He just can’t handle it. He can’t help. Maybe he’s seen too much, I don’t know, but I can’t put that on him. I don’t want to do anything to make him run away from _me_.”

It was like she’d been punched in the gut. Denial coursed through her veins, but not strongly enough to drown out the fact that deep down, the Doctor knew that River was _right_. He’d only thought of his own loss, his own grief, watching Amy let herself be taken by the angel, it had only occurred to him later, when he and River were safely back in the Tardis, that he’d registered that she was grieving too, that Amy and Rory were perhaps closer to her than they’d been to him. 

It took the Doctor a minute to catch her breath enough to reply. “River, I’m so sorry,” she managed after a moment.

“Don’t be,” River told her, matter of fact. “That’s just how he is.”

The Doctor followed River, quietly, processing everything she’d just heard. It was quite an indictment, but there wasn’t a single part of it that she could deny, in fact, River’s assessment ran deeper than she could know. He’d always managed to convince himself to shut off the painful feelings when they arose, bottle it up and hope they never came back. But to think that River felt like she had to hide, to perform a certain amount of happiness to keep the Doctor comfortable and maintain their relationship… it made her a little sick to think about.

Without warning, River stopped short, grabbing the Doctor’s wrist and stopped her in her tracks. “What?” The Doctor asked, taking in River’s alarmed expression, suddenly irritated with herself for getting so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she’d forgotten where they were. 

“I thought I heard something,” River whispered, going stock-still.

The Doctor shone the light around the hallway, straining for any sound of what River had heard. There seemed to be a wall further down, just far enough that the beam of light barely reached it, and if she squinted she could see where the hallway had actually split into a right and a left branch. The silence around them rang in her ears, so quiet she could hear her own hearts beating. She let the silence drag out for several moments. “Do you hear it now?” she asked.

River shook her head, still listening. After a long moment, she took the torch back from the Doctor and cautiously moved towards the end of the hall, listening intently and eventually shining the beam of light down each way. Upon seeing nothing, she seemed to relax a bit and handed the torch back before heading down the new hallway to the right. 

“So.” The Doctor took the opportunity to change the subject to different topic. “Tell me about these colleagues we’re rescuing. Did they mention where they were being held?”

River shook her head, but tilted the tracking device towards the Doctor so she could see it. “When we go on expeditions, we all have a little tracking chip in our vests that sends a signal to the homing device.” She tapped on the blinking light. “Hopefully they’ve all kept their clothes on,” she told her wryly.

The Doctor scrunched her nose at the innuendo, making River laugh. “So why did they go to this planet in the first place? What were they after?”

“I read Vera’s file before I tracked down the TARDIS,” River told her. “A few weeks ago, they started getting some strange readings that looked like a distortion in space and time. Initially, she thought it was a black hole, but then pieces of coded messages started to come through. It’s nearly impossible to decode it without the whole message, and they were coded in one of the most ancient languages in the universe, but according to Vera’s notes they think it may be a sort of time bomb.”

The Doctor stopped in her tracks. “Seriously?”

River nodded. “Well, depending on how you translate it, it could be a singularity bomb. I suppose semantics don’t really matter, since they would work similarly. Tiny little device that causes a brand new singularity, rips a hole in the fabric of time, and either opens a portal to a new dimension- and who knows what or who would be on the other side of that- or just completely destroy this dimension.” 

The Doctor added the new pieces of information to the puzzle in her head, turning the information over in her mind. Given what she knew about the Kasaavin, about the things the Master had shown her in the Matrix, she certainly didn’t think opening a portal to a new dimension was the best idea. But it didn’t make sense. If even the Time Lords hadn’t been able to break into other dimensions, what other race in this dimension would even have the knowledge and resources to make a singularity bomb? “So they sent out a coded message,” she pondered aloud. “Was it a cry for help or a threat?”

River shrugged. “We never got enough of the message to tell. Anyway, Vera led a team out here to investigate and try to collect or defuse the bomb. We figured if someone was desperate enough to send a coded message about it, there was a pretty good chance someone was trying to set it off.”

“Takes some guts,” the Doctor remarked.

River nodded. “Vera’s not really one to let sleeping dogs lie when lives are at stake. She insisted. She personally chose everyone on this trip based on what she thought they might encounter here.”

“Who did she bring?” the Doctor asked.

“There’s an explosives expert, for obvious reasons. An astrophysicist, in case they get to investigate the bomb itself and figure out what it’s for. And she brought a hostage negotiator, in case the race sending out the coded message is being held captive, or if they manage to get caught. They all should have been well-equipped to deal with the situation here, so the fact that they all got captured worries me a bit, especially with the hostage negotiator.”

The Doctor considered the new information, wondering if that was truly all the detail River had. It would be very like River to avoid giving too much information, especially to someone she thought she had just met. “That’s quite a team for an archaeology group,” the Doctor mused aloud.

River paused. “How did you know that?”

Whoops. The Doctor scrambled for an answer. “You mentioned earlier,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster, attempting to arrange her face in an earnest expression. Truthfully, she couldn’t remember if River had mentioned her occupation earlier or not.

River nodded slowly, apparently racking her brain to remember if she’d mentioned it or not. She had just seemed to accept the idea that she’d said but didn’t remember when her device began whirring, a new light blinking on the front of it. 

“Aha,” River told her. “We’re within 100 feet of one of them.”

“Just one?” the Doctor asked, excitement and intrigue sparking to life within her.

“Yeah. No telling which one, though,” River told her, slowly walking back and forth across the width of the hallway, testing the limits of the 100 foot boundary, switching the device to a new setting for easier tracking.

Their conversation all but forgotten, they followed the signal on the device back and forth through the corridor, eventually deducing that the person they were tracking was on the other side of a locked thick wooden door.

The Doctor jiggled the door handle, which stubbornly refused to budge. She examined the door, wondering if she could compromise the hinges, wishing she could pull out her sonic without giving herself away.

“Take this,” River tapped her shoulder and handed the Doctor the tracking device when she turned to look. “Stand back,” River said.

Inquisitively, the Doctor took a step back from the door, and watched as River stepped forward and side-kicked the door with enough force to make the sound of the impact reverberate back and forth down the empty hallway. Unfortunately, the door remained stalwartly in place, completely unaffected by River’s abuse.

“Gotten into MMA?” the Doctor asked, mildly amused.

“What the hell are these latches made of, anyway?” River muttered, handing the Doctor the tracking device and digging through her bag, eventually pulling out something the Doctor thought looked like a tangled piece of barbed wire, minus the barbs, and a small silver hook, which she held delicately between her teeth while she worked. River deftly slid the wire in the crack of the door near the latch, maneuvering it around until she heard a soft click, then slid the hook in after it and after a moment of gentle tugging, the latch came free and the door creaked open. 

“Nice,” the Doctor told her as River stuffed the lock wire in the outer pocket of her bag.

“Thanks,” River grinned, unable to resist a proud little grin, showing off as she took the tracker back.

The Doctor pushed the door open and shone the light around in the darkness beyond. It was the same dark, dusty, stale environment as the hallway, seemingly empty of furniture or anything at all. “They’re not big on interior décor around here, are they?” she mused aloud.

“Weird, isn’t it?” River agreed.

“What kind of species d’you think lives on this planet?” the Doctor wondered aloud. “It’s too hot and dry for much vegetation outside. It’s pitch black inside. And what’s with the satellites that were outside?” she asked, wondering at the fact that the satellites hadn’t bothered River nearly as much as they’d bothered her.

“Maybe they’re giant moles,” River suggested, shrugging and striding forward into the darkness.

The Doctor glanced at her to see if she was joking or not, but River seemed neither lighthearted or serious. She followed her forward, the room in front of them so big that the light from the torch reached only the ceiling and the floor, but the dark seemed to swallow the beam of light on all sides. She turned and shone the light back at the door they’d come through, and River turned to see what she was looking at.

“I suppose we should follow the wall, hm? Rather than just wander into the void,” River mused aloud, seeming to read the Doctor’s mind. 

“Good idea,” the Doctor nodded.

The wall and the blinking of the device were their only two guides as they walked along in silence, the muffled sound of their steps swallowed by the darkness around them. The Doctor noticed with dismay that the further in they walked, the more a thick, coppery sort of smell was becoming more and more prominent. She desperately hoped it wasn’t what she thought it was, and then she saw it.

At first, it looked like a dark, wet pile of laundry, just barely illuminated in the dim light they were carrying. “River,” the Doctor said, tapping her on the shoulder, gesturing towards the figure when River turned to look at her.

“Oh, no.” River slowly and cautiously headed towards it, but the closer she got and the more she recognized it the faster she got, until she jogged the last few steps and stared down at what was only obviously a mangled body once you got right up to it. “It’s Allen.” 

The Doctor approached, too, a bit wary, as though she suspected the shredded limbs on the floor might magically reassemble and attack. 

“It looks like he put up a fight,” River managed, kneeling down to get a closer look. After a moment, she sat back on her heels and looked upwards to compose herself. She sniffled quietly and swiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. 

A deeply uncomfortable feeling crept up the Doctor’s spine, she _hated_ watching other people cry, and her first instinct was to grab River’s hand and pull her out of the room, get on with the mission, but she remembered what River had told her earlier and forced herself to fight down the instinct to run. What would the real Yaz do? Or Ryan, he was good with these kinds of situations.

The Doctor swallowed hard and knelt down next to River, tentatively putting a hand on her shoulder. “River, I’m so sorry,” she said after a few moments, her voice thin.

“Thanks,” River replied quietly.

The Doctor waited in silence for what felt like an eternity, and finally River spoke. “I hadn’t even known him all that long,” River told her, finally turning away from the body and standing up. “He hasn’t worked with us all that long. But he was always so nice. And now we’re going to have to tell his family…” she trailed off.

The Doctor couldn’t think of a single thing to say, so she stayed quiet, her tongue tied in knots. She waited until River brushed herself off and started towards the door, fiddling with the device until it stopped blinking, letting it know it didn’t have to track Allen anymore. The Doctor picked up the torch and followed River out of the room and back into the hallway before her brains finally let her come up with something she wanted to know.

“River?” she asked, closing the door behind them. “Which one was he?”

River tilted her head, confused.

“You said your colleague put together a specific team, everyone with a skill they needed. Which one was he?”

“Ah.” River looked down, biting her lip. “He was the hostage negotiator.”


End file.
